Did I Fall Asleep?
by MysteriousTwinkie
Summary: Dollhouse AU: In which Felicity and Oliver's first meeting has a whole different backstory.


**Did I Fall Asleep?-Dollhouse AU**

 ** _(_** ** _It's been a while, but I'll try to keep this short. New job + lots of volunteering hours + working on two novels means very little spare time. Plus, my brother and sis-in-law, who I hadn't seen in person for two years, were in town for the last two months. That's why it's been so long since I've posted anything. But I've been keeping up with the fandom, and fic has never been very far from my thoughts._**

 ** _This is an AU I've wanted to try for ages, and Masque's birthday seemed like a great time to bust it out. Her actual b-day was months ago, but it's the thought that counts. So happy birthday, my dear and wonderful friend!_**

 ** _(Before anyone asks, no, I don't plan on continuing this. It's complete as it stands.)_**

The bass thumping through the speakers at Verdant wasn't loud anymore. It was pervasive. Diggle felt like every cell in his body was throbbing to the beat. He couldn't wait to get out of there.

He checked his watch. Time to find his girl.

She was in the center of the dance floor, grinding on the spoiled punk whose parents had shelled out twenty large just to rent the club for his 21st birthday. Her long blonde hair fell past her bare shoulders in loose waves. Her lacy white dress barely covered her ass, and every time she raised her arms above her head, she flashed a butt check.

Diggle wondered if the real her would be embarrassed or proud. But he had no way of knowing, because he'd never met the real her.

He elbowed through the crowd and put his hand on her arm. She turned around, frowning, then smiled when she saw him. Oracle always recognized him, no matter who she was. He never understood how that worked.

"It's time for your treatment!" Diggle shouted over the music.

She cursed, then gave the birthday boy a sloppy kiss. "I'll be back, baby."

Dig shuddered. He had no problem with tongue. Tongue was great. His ex could do some amazing things with her tongue. But he didn't want to _see_ other people's tongues as they kissed. He tugged gently on Oracle's arm, and she followed him out of the club.

He opened the door of the van and gave her a hand to climb in. He made sure to avert his gaze, yet somehow she got into the van without flashing him. He grabbed the handle to slide the door closed, but she stopped him, slender, pale fingers tightening on his wrist.

"You'll take me back to the party after my treatment, right?"

Her hair was tousled, her pink lipstick smudged and somehow he knew—just _knew_ —that the woman she'd been before they'd taken everything and slapped a code name on her would've scorned the kid and this place and the money that paid for it.

"Sure," Dig said. "Whatever you want."

Roy leaned on the railing and watched Diggle steer Oracle by her elbow across the main floor of the Dollhouse below. Mrs. Queen was harsh with anyone showing favoritism, and mostly he found the blank stares and empty heads of the Dolls to be annoying. But there was just something about Oracle.

It was kind of his fault that she was in the Dollhouse in the first place. Most of them had volunteered, signed five-year, extremely lucrative contracts. Oracle had been captured.

If Roy hadn't been at his workstation, if he'd been looking anywhere other than at the lower right corner of his far left monitor, no one would have ever known who breached six of his seven ultra-fortified firewalls. Nobody had ever gotten so close to the inner workings of Queen Consolidated's profitable but shady as hell side business. Roy could count on his hands the number of people who even knew they were part of QC, and most of them worked in the Dollhouse.

But Roy _was_ there, he _was_ looking, and he knew immediately who had penetrated the system. Watchtower, as she was known in hacker circles, was as good as it gets, better even than him. (Not that he'd ever admit it.) But she was a ghost. No one knew a thing about her. Even the "she" was a guess, though probably a good one, since she tended to babble on about heels and lipstick during her rare appearances in anonymous chats.

He'd reported the breach, boasting about snagging Watchtower. Mrs. Queen waved away his explanation that he'd caught in the act the most talented hacker in a generation.

"I want a name," she'd said in that icy tone of hers that always made his balls shrivel up and retreat. "Not a pseudonym, a real one."

Roy had laughed. The look on her face didn't actually kill him, but he knew he was just one step, one word, one twitch away from being put in the Attic. He shivered, remembering.

"Harper."

Roy's head snapped up. "Mr. Diggle. And Meg. Are you ready for your treatment, Meg?"

She tossed back her long blonde hair. The Dolls could be irritating as hell, even creepy sometimes, but they were all lookers, and damn if her ass didn't look _amazing_ in that dress.

Diggle cleared his throat. Roy lifted his gaze to the ceiling as the huge man led the tiny woman in an even tinier dress toward the chair. She sat down and leaned back, the golden waves of her hair fanning across the headrest.

"Let's get this over with," she said. "I have a party to get back to."

"Right," Roy said, turning to his equipment. "This might pinch a little bit."

He tapped in a sequence on the keyboard and hit "Enter." The blue lights of the chair came on, and Meg—Oracle—moaned and writhed. In pain, not in the pleasure she'd experienced in the last two days with the rich college brat . . . Well, maybe not that much pleasure. Roy had sneaked a peek at the file. The kid was nothing if not the definition of a pity fuck.

It didn't matter, though. Whatever she'd been through in those two days, good or bad, was being wiped as she squirmed and gripped the arms of the chair with white knuckles.

Then it was over. The chair raised up from its reclining position, and Oracle sat up, turning to him with a vacant stare.

"Did I fall asleep?" she asked.

"For a little while."

She looked down at her hands folded in her lap. When she glanced up again, Roy felt the same disappointment he had every time he returned her to her Doll state. Watchtower wasn't the god everyone took her for. She was just a girl, like any other, and everything that made her who she was had been extracted like an infected tooth.

"Shall I go now?"

"If you like," said Roy.

Oracle rose and strolled past him, a gliding walk that was all hers, no matter who she was on any particular day.

Roy turned back to the chair and pulled out the Meg hard drive. He inserted it into a slot in the wall, then ran his fingers across another row of hard, drives, stopping at the third from the right. It was labeled with a number, but Roy knew every name assigned to each one.

"Felicity Megan Smoak," he murmured. "Watchtower. Meg. Oracle."

Oliver juggled two bags of groceries, his keys, and a thick expandable file with papers and a manila envelope sticking out the top. As he reached his door, the keys slipped from his fingers.

"Damn," he muttered.

A slender hand reached down and plucked the keys from the floor.

"You never ask for help."

Oliver dropped the envelope while trying to glance over his shoulder.

A soft laugh. "Never. You struggle and struggle until you're on your knees."

"I'm still upright," said Oliver.

Shado, his neighbor, stepped around him and used his keys to unlock the door.

"Thanks," he said, moving past her to enter his apartment. He set down the groceries and turned to find her scooping up the envelope and fallen papers. "You don't have to—I'll get that."

Shado straightened up. "You're just proving my point, Oliver."

He carried his groceries into the kitchen. "I don't like having to depend on anyone else."

"Clearly." She followed him and set the papers on the counter. "Here's your mail." Shado slide the manila envelope toward him. "No return address. Should you have brought this home with you?"

"Why? It's just an envelope," said Oliver as he put a new gallon of milk in the fridge.

"Isn't the FBI supposed to X-ray stuff like that? Check it out for anthrax or something?"

He smiled. "Well, it's a little late for that, don't you think? We've both touched it."

Shado took a step backward, holding up her hands.

"I'm kidding, Shado," Oliver said. "This kind of envelope? It's for interoffice mail. Whatever's in it originated from within the Starling City field office. Totally safe."

He tore open the flap of the envelope and shook its contents onto the counter. All it contained was a single photo. One photo of a stunning young woman. The purple streaks in her dark hair and the heavy eyeliner she wore did nothing to conceal her beauty. She was stunning.

Oliver turned over the picture. _Felicity, 2009,_ it read. The handwriting was round and bubbly. There was a smiley face next to the year. Fingerprints were moot now, so he handed the photo to Shado.

"Pretty. Who is she?"

"Felicity, I assume," he replied, pointing at the back of the picture. "Beyond that, I have no idea."

Shado picked up the envelope. "Did you see this?" She showed it to him.

 _Keep Looking_. Different handwriting. Blockier, more hurried. It matched the writing on the front— _For Agent Oliver Queen_.

"What does it mean?" Shado asked. "Keep looking for what?"

Oliver touched the corner of the photo. It was a candid shot. The girl sat on a threadbare green couch, arms crossed, but she was smiling. He saw part of a Christmas tree in the background and, incongruously, a small menorah on the coffee table where she rested her feet.

"It's this case I'm on," he said, unable to break his gaze. There was just something about this girl.

"The big, creepy conspiracy that no one but you believes in?" Shado asked.

"That's the one."

"What does she have to do with it? The girl."

Oliver huffed out a half-laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. "How much time do you have?"

Moira Queen loved her children more than anything. More than her own life. When it came to protecting Oliver and Thea, nothing was off-limits. She wasn't the most involved parent, but never let it be said that she didn't love her children.

So there was no guilt when she turned to her computer screen and brought up the camera feed from Oliver's wretched little apartment.

"Wine? At four in the afternoon?" his neighbor was saying. "I thought you changed your ways."

"I'm not the partier I once was, but this isn't a conversation I can have without alcohol."

Moira's thoughts wandered as her son then proceeded to share what was surely sensitive information, if not classified, on the case that had become his crusade after he returned from the dead and joined the FBI.

Actions had consequences, and Oliver would need to be reminded of that. But she had more pressing concerns, like someone with knowledge about one of her Actives having initiated communication with law enforcement. Hers and Oliver's relationship aside, and despite Oliver's status at the FBI as the butt of everyone's jokes, the fact that this person felt secure enough in his anonymity to reach out was troubling at the very least.

And the Active in question . . .

All of her Actives were exceptional, but Oracle was special. Moira had waved away Roy's techno-babble explaining how the hacker known as Watchtower infiltrated nearly every layer of their cyber-security, but she was actually paying close attention. An idea was forming in her mind.

Moira switched off the video feed and turned to her personal laptop. She kept the recording of her initial conversation with Watchtower on the desktop. She clicked the icon.

"Hello, Felicity. My name is Moira Queen. Do sit down."

By the time she met the girl face to face, Moira had seen the complete dossier Roy had assembled, so she wasn't surprised that the formidable Watchtower barely cleared five feet and favored beaded cardigans and shoes with animal faces on them.

She didn't sit. She wrapped her arms around her middle and glanced at the door, where Malcolm waited.

"You may leave us now, Mr. Merlyn," Moira said to him.

He smirked and then left the room, closing the door behind him. Her affair with him was one of her life's biggest regrets, a fact she was reminded of every time he gave her attitude.

"Please, sit," Moira said to the girl in a tone that implied this was an order, not a request.

Felicity perched on the edge of a chair. "This isn't a job interview."

"Actually, it is. Of a sort. I have a proposal for you." Moira poured a cup of tea and pushed it toward the girl. "Have some tea. It will help you relax."

In the end, Felicity Smoak signed the standard five-year contract. They always signed. Moira had never been turned down. She knew how to choose her Actives from among the vulnerable and desperate. The vulnerable had something to lose, and the desperate had already lost everything.

Ironically, it was Felicity herself who had tipped off Oliver about the existence of the Dollhouse and his family's connection to it. He started out in Cybercrime at the FBI where he made unmasking Watchtower, one of the division's most wanted, his special project. He'd always been a little obsessive. After catching a few dropped hints here and there in chats and on discussion boards Watchtower was known to frequent, Oliver turned his narrowed focus to the Dollhouse.

He had no hard evidence to support his theories, and he'd never confronted Moira directly, but he did move out, and he cut off all private contact with her. The only times they were together was when his presence was necessary to maintain the happy-family façade for the media's benefit.

Moira loved her son, but if allowing him to keep his distance was the price to prevent him from bringing the family legacy—and the law—from crashing down around them, then she would gladly pay it. For his own protection. And when it came to protecting her children, nothing was off-limits.

Oliver picked up the photo again. Its corners curled from over-handling. The girl . . . There was just something about her.

 _Keep Looking_ , the note said. And Oliver had done just that. But it wasn't easy. Agent Michaels had helped him squeeze a few leads from the photo's background, but she swore she couldn't enhance it any further, and those leads didn't give him anything solid.

"Just run it through facial recognition, Lyla," Oliver had pleaded. "If she's important enough to contact the FBI about, she's important enough to show up somewhere in the system."

"You don't even know which case this is about, let alone whether or not a crime has been committed." She was looking at her computer screen, not him, but he could hear the eye-roll in her tone.

"I won't know anything until I find out who she is," said Oliver.

"I can't help you do that when you have nothing but a picture that anyone could have slipped in your mail."

Lyla would do a lot for him, but she wouldn't break the rules. She liked her job too much.

The tipoff had recharged Oliver's campaign to bring down the Dollhouse, and now he had information about an Active. A name and a years-old photo weren't much to go on, but it was only a matter of time before Oliver discovered Felicity's identity and linked her back to Watchtower. And then to the Dollhouse.

Moira would have to give him something, some kind of scrap. A tidbit that would lead him in the wrong direction but would appear legitimate enough for him to pursue.

Moira turned to a larger screen. It was divided into sections showing live feeds from security cameras around the Dollhouse. A square on the left, in the middle row, revealed the exam room where Dr. Bertinelli evaluated Actives upon returning from engagements. Oracle reclined on the exam table, loose-limbed and docile, while the doctor bent her knee. Her lips moved. Moira turned up the volume.

"Yes, this feels tight," Dr. Bertinelli said. "Do you remember something heavy falling on it?"

"No," said Oracle, eyes wide and innocent. "I don't." She tugged on the strap of her cami, a nervous gesture that could not be eradicated no matter how often or how thoroughly she was wiped.

"Well, take it easy. Stay off the treadmill for at least a couple of days, and I'll tell Roy and Mrs. Queen to keep your next few engagements low-key."

Oracle nodded, but her gaze was blank and unfocused. "I always try to be my best."

Dr. Bertinelli rolled her eyes. "I know. Just dial it back a little."

The young woman nodded again, her ponytail bobbing, but she looked confused. It had never been clear exactly how much Actives could comprehend in the Doll state. Conversing with them about anything more complex than small talk was frustrating and often pointless. Moira took a certain amount of satisfaction from seeing Watchtower's mighty intellect reduced to blank stares and chats about her favorite fruit or how much she enjoyed swimming in the pool.

An idea began to take shape in Moira's mind as Oracle hopped down from the table and limped out of Dr. Bertinelli's office. Oliver wanted to find Felicity, so why not give him Felicity? Or at least a version of her, anyway.

Oliver needed help. He'd gone as far as he could in his search for the mysterious Felicity, but it was becoming clear that it would take talents outside his skill set, and outside the Bureau.

The Queen last name, along with his FBI badge and a fair amount of the old Ollie charm, gained him access to Queen Consolidated's IT department. He learned that Felicity Smoak, described as nerdy but some kind of miracle worker, was his best bet.

The mention of her name caused his heart to stutter and then pound. There couldn't be two Felicitys, could there? It had to be _his_ Felicity.

Wiping sweaty palms on his jeans, he stepped up to her cubicle. She was half turned away and her head was down. A red pen between her teeth. A blonde ponytail. It couldn't be her.

"Felicity Smoak?" he ventured. "Hi. I'm Oliver Queen."

She turned to face him, the pen dropping from her lips, and his breath caught in his throat when their eyes met. Yes, she was blonde now. The only holdover he recognized was the bar piercing the top of her right ear. But it was her.

It was _her._


End file.
